NEWS: Colin Harvey: Help Support Above and Beyond with Angry Robot

A year after his passing, Colin Harvey's publishers, Angry Robot are offering his two books:
Winter Song
Damage Time
Alongside his Flash Fiction Mini Collection for a staggering price of £6 via the Robot Trading Company.

All proceeds will be donated to the authors favourite Charity, Above and Beyond by the publisher. 

For more on Colin and to help get the twitter feed trending alongside appearing on Facebook please link to Lee Harris' Angry Robot tribute on thier website.  

Together we can make a difference in the memory of a gracious author who always made time for people and managed to turn an awful day upside down. 

NEWS: Colin Harvey Passes

We're sady to announce the passing of Colin Harvey, author of Science Fiction titles:
Winter Song
Damage Time

Released by Angry Robot. Whilst we never had the pleasure of interviewing him, we wanted to carry a tribute to this author. As such we can think of no better way than to carry his publishers tribute:

"It is with a heavy heart that we heard this morning about the death of Colin Harvey. He had a stroke on Monday morning, and did not recover.

I first met Colin at NewCon in Northampton, as I was just starting to get Angry Robot off the ground. We’d got talking about nothing in particular, as you do at SF conventions, but once he’d sniffed out I was not only a possible publisher but also open to pitches, he went for it with gusto. I bought two novels off him in quick succession – Winter Song and the still-in-progress Damage Time – and the former was included in our launch line-up in July 2009, the second novel last October. His writing was an unusual mix of traditional SF tropes – crashed spaceship, decaying city – but written with almost total focus on the characters of the people caught up in such events.

Colin hadn’t just come from nowhere, however. He had made frequent story sales in the usual venues, and had a trio of titles out through small presses in the UK and US. He had a natural enthusiasm for SF in all its forms too – he was part of the team organising the blossoming Bristolcon, and ran regular blogs and interviews across his and several other websites. He was a cheery presence on the UK SF scene, and we shall miss him terribly. Our thoughts and condolences go to his wife, Kate. — Marc"

If you wish to leave your own memories to him please do so at the Angry Robot Blog here.

SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW: Damage Time - Colin Harvey

Release Date: 07/10/10

BOOK BLURB:

Rock-hard SF Thriller from the author of Winter Song: no-one here gets out alive.

It's 2050 and sea-levels have swamped today's coastal regions. New York City is protected by tidal barriers and the USA is bankrupt.

Detective Pervez (Pete) Shah serves with the NYPD's Web Crimes Division as a Memory Association Specialist. When he's accused of murdering a glamorous woman in a bar, he must find the killer, save himself … and the world.


REVIEW:

Having enjoyed Colin’s Winter Song, I was looking forward to seeing what would arrive next. After all, I enjoyed the build up, I enjoyed his characterisation and above all else, his character building was almost as extensive as his world.

Here, within this title, I got all of that and more as crime meets sci-fi head in this no holds barred offering. Back that up with a lead character that’s just as confused as we are which aids in building a link to the readers emotions alongside a beautifully written tale with great pace and you know that you have a tale that is 100% story with no added waffle that won’t let up from the beginning through to the end.

FANTASY REVIEW: Winter Song - Colin Harvey

BOOK BLURB:

The planet had fallen off the map. When Karl Altman's spaceship crashed, he had only one question: "HOW THE HELL DO I GET OUT OF HERE?" Rock-hard sci-fi adventure. No-one here gets out alive. When his spaceship crashes on an unknown and forgotten planet, scientist Karl Altman discovers himself hunted by an ancient race. The descendants of a Viking race have reverted to a savage culture of sacrifice, pillage and violence. When Karl falls in love with an outcast girl, he has only one goal: escape. But escape is a distant dream on this nightmare planet.


REVIEW:

A book of multiple genres and one that I had a hard time placing review wise as it neatly fits into Sci-Fi as well as the fantasy genre. What makes this so enjoyable is how we get to look at society through the eyes of a stranger so as things are explained it’s not an info dump that so many authors are want to do these days. Its got a good bit of star building, a cracking set of world building but what Colin does well is his character interaction as well as growth as the cast within could each have taken centre stage in a story of their own. Its not fast paced but it is good solid fare and undoubtably goes to show the strength for of the portfolio that Angry Robot have built in their first year of release. If you want a different novel to the norm and one that will leave you satisfied at conclusion then this is definitely the book for you.

NEWS: Angry Robot New Signing

Angry Robot (the new imprint from Harper Collins) were proud to announce signing Colin Harvey today.

For some years Colin has bene a contributor to the British Small Presses and blogs as well as a regular reviewer for Strange Horizons.

Signed for two novels, the first, Winter Song, will appear in October and follows a bio engineered Starship Pilot Karl Allman who crashes his craft onto a snowy planet in habited by Vikingesque tribes, the remanants of earlier colonisation efforts. As the ntives help him find a way back to the stars, he comes to realise that they are far from primitive.